The Languages of Native North America

Inuktitut-Inupiaq (or Inuit or Inuit-Inupiaq) is a dialect chain stretching from the
Bering Strait to Greenland. Adjacent dialects are mutually intelligible but more
distant ones are not. Dialect comparisons are in Fortescue 1985b and Dorais 1990c.
Krauss (1997) estimates the number of speakers of all dialects together at 75,000
including children, with 3500 in Alaska, 24,000 in Canada, and 47,000 in Greenland.
The Alaskan dialects are referred to as Inupiaq or Inupiaq; the Canadian dialects,
spoken by the Inuit, as Inuvialuktun, Inuktitut, and Inuttut (Labrador); and the
Greenlandic dialects as Kalaallisut. An accessible history of the language is in Dorais
1993. There are comparisons of phonology in Lipscomb 1991, intonation in Fortescue
1983a, and affixes in Fortescue 1983b.

The Inupiaq dialects fall into two groups: Seward Peninsula (Bering Strait and
Qawiaraq) and Northern (Malimiut and North Slope, including Uummarmiut at the
western edge of the Northwest Territories). Early liturgical materials are listed in
Krauss 1973b. Dictionaries are in Webster & Zibell 1970, MacLean 1980, and Lowe
1984a; grammars in Lowe 1985a and MacLean 1986a,b; and texts in Kaplan et al.
1988. Kaplan treats phonology (1979, 1981a,b, 1985) and Seiler (1992) suffix order.
MacLean 1994 contains an analysis of the interaction of tense, aspect, and
demonstratives in two texts, along with the texts and a grammatical sketch.

The Western Canadian dialects stretch along the north coast of the Northwest
Territories and adjacent islands. An early comparative vocabulary is in Jenness 1928.
The dialects are discussed in Dorais & Lowe 1982, Dorais 1986, and Lowe 1991.
Petitot published an early Sight dictionary with grammatical notes (1876b), Spalding
(1960) a grammar of Caribou, and Lowe a Sight dictionary (1984b) and grammar
(1985b), and a Kangiryaurmiut dictionary (1983) and grammar (1985c). Barrow texts
are in Jenness 1924 and Kangiryaurmiut (Coppermine) legends are in Metayer 1973.
Netsilik (also spelled Natsilik) texts are in Rasmussen 1931. Grammatical relations
in Caribou Inuktitut at Baker Lake are discussed in Johns 1987 and kinship terms are
in Grabum 1964. KivalHq (Qairnirmiut, Hauniqturmiut, Paalirmiut, Ahiarmiut) is
sometimes combined with Aivilik (Southampton, Rankin Inlet) in a subgroup of
Eastern Canadian Inuktitut termed Keewatin (Dorais 1990). A Kivalliq dictionary is
in Thibert 1970 and texts are in Owingajak 1986.

The Eastern Canadian dialects are spoken all around Hudson Bay, including the
east coast of the Northwest Territories, on Baffin Island to the north, over the west

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and north coasts of Quebec, past Ungava Bay and down the east coast of Labrador.
The dialects are discussed in detail in Dorais 1976a and 1990. General work on
phonology is in Petersen 1970, Dorais 1977a, 1985, and Creider 1981. A substantial
grammar is in Schneider 1972-6, and a grammatical sketch is in Lowe 1992. A lexicon
is in Dorais 1978a and a substantial dictionary in Schneider 1985. On Aivilik there are
grammars in Spalding 1969, 1992, Dorais 1976b, and Sammons 1985, 1993,
dictionaries in Thibert 1970 and Spalding 1982, and texts in Spalding 1979a. For the
dialects of Baffin Island, there are grammatical descriptions in Schneider 1967,
Harper 1974, 1979, Dorais 1975a, 1978a, and Spalding 1979b. Grammars of the
Arctic Quebec dialects are in Flint 1954 (a reworking of an 1883 grammar by the
Rev. E.J. Peck), Dorais 1975b, 1977b, 1979, 1988, and Trinel 1979; dictionaries are
in Peck 1925 (based on Erdmann 1864), Schneider 1970a,b, 1979 and Dorais 1983,
and texts in Nungak & Arima 1988. Special treatments of phonology are in Dorais
1980 and Massenet 1977, 1978, 1986. Early work on the Labrador (Inuttut) dialects,
described in Dorais 1980, was done by Moravian missionaries, yielding a dictionary
(Erdmann 1864) and grammar (Bourquin 1891). More recent descriptions are in
Dorais 1977c, Smith 1975, 1977a,b, 1979a, 1981, 1982a,b. Glossaries and dictionaries
arc in Smith & Metcalfe 1973a,b, Peacock 1974a,b,c, and Jeddore 1976. A general
discussion of Inuit linguistic demographics, grammar, lexicology, semantics,
sociolinguistics, and ethnolinguistics is in Dorais 1996.

Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native
North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.